Apple Seeds Mac OS X 10.6.6 To Developers, 10.6.5 Coming Any Day Now

As noted by 9to5mac, Apple just seeded Mac OS X 10.6.6 (build 10J521) to registered Mac developers. 10.6.6, another version of Snow Leopard – we thought the upcoming 10.6.5 would be the last before Lion.

The only information provided in the changelog:

- Contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts. See “Validating App Store Receipts” for more details.

The release of a first 10.6.6 seed means the 10.6.5 version we’ve been talking about for months could be coming later today, tomorrow – any day. It’s ready, just waiting to be released publicly.

Simplepedia Is A Minimal Wikipedia Reader For Your iPad

I don’t know how I missed this in June. Maybe I was too busy shooting pictures with my iPhone 4. Remember when we first saw the Retina Display? Yeah, good times.

Simplepedia, developed by the same guy behind PDFMate, is a minimal and, well, simple Wikipedia reader for iPad. It comes with a standalone iPhone version, too, but I haven’t tried that one. On the iPad, the app can do two things: search for Wikipedia articles and save them for offline reading. That’s really it, folks. Read more

Note Hub: Notes, Drawings, Maps, Calculator, Tasks and a Browser…In A Single App

Some apps do one thing exceptionally well and some try too much just to miserably fail in the end. Either you’re a great note taking application or you’re a sketching software, but surely you can’t aim at doing both just fine. Note Hub wants to break this convention by being the app you come back to for anything related to…well, a pretty huge amount of things: notes, maps, browsing, drawings, tasks. It’s even got a calculator.

Note Hub wants to be the app you use for your note taking needs, but after some tests I have to say it’s more an app geared towards “visual” people who need to work with rich media on a daily basis and would like to organize content in a user-friendly interface. Read more

iPhoto 9.1 With Calendars Support Now Available

A few minutes ago Apple released an updated version of iPhoto, which reaches version 9.1 and adds support for Calendars, a feature that mysteriously went missing in the first iteration of iPhoto ‘11. Apple already announced an update with Calendars support was on its way.

Check out the official changelog below:

This update adds several new print product options to iPhoto ‘11. It also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues.

- Provides the ability to create and order calendars in iPhoto.
- Additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes are now available.
- Fixes an issue that prevented videos downloaded from MobileMe or Flickr from importing correctly into iPhoto events.
- The update is recommended for all users of iPhoto ‘11.

You can download the update in Software Update or at Apple’s support page for iPhoto 9.1.

Custom Styles for Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac→

Custom Styles for Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac

A few hours back, a new Beta of Skype for Mac hit the interwebs. The twitter was going all crazy for it. This new Beta of Skype for Mac included some drastic UI changes. (read: 100% of the UI has changed)

One of the most noticeable visual changes was the amount of whitespace. Because the window looked like it was a Web View, and I saw something about Chat Styles in the settings, I decided to dig into the Skype.app package.

Also check out Panamerica Mini.

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ReadSquare: RSS Reader with a Reeder-like UI, But I Don’t Get It

On the iPad, Reeder is my default app for RSS feeds reading. It’s so beautiful, fast, feature rich and, at the same time, elegant I don’t see myself switching to another application anytime soon. But our job is to try new apps and keep you in the loop, right? So when I stumbled upon the preview page of this new iPad app – ReadSquare – I was very excited to try the app and I started waiting for it to show up in iTunes.

Last week, the app was released as free for a limited time. It’s available here for download. But while I was looking forward to see the app in action and whether it could deliver on what the developers promised (what actually got me interested in the first place), I now have to admit the execution is, sadly, very poor.

Read more

iAds Rolling Out Internationally [Screenshots]

It appears that Apple has flipped the switch on iAds, which are now showing up for iPhone users outside the United States and United Kingdom. I’ve personally downloaded a free iAd-supported iPhone app and I got to see two different campaigns: a CitiBank one and an AT&T one. Both the iAds are working fine in Italy.

With Apple getting ready to release iOS 4.2, a worldwide launch of iAds for iPad as well wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Read more

Google Rolling Out Instant Search for iPhone

Update: official blog post from Google.

In September we announced that we were working to bring Google Instant to mobile, and today we’re making a beta version available to most iPhone and Android devices in the U.S. To try it out, go to google.com in your phone’s browser and tap the Google Instant “Turn on” link beneath the search box (if you don’t see the “Turn on” link, try waiting a moment and then refresh the page).

Like the desktop version of Google Instant, when you type on your mobile device you’ll see predictions of what you might be searching for. If you type [anse], for example, you should see [ansel adams] along with other predictions.

We hope you’ll enjoy using Google Instant for mobile as much as we enjoyed making it. It’s currently available for Android 2.2 (“Froyo”) devices and iPhones and iPods running iOS 4 in the U.S. in English.

According to a screenshot posted by 9to5mac, Google has started rolling out the Instant search to iOS devices. In the screenshot, you can see it’s labelled as “beta” and you have the option to turn it off. Read more

MacStories Interviews: Ben Brooks

[MacStories Interviews is a new series of email interviews and conversations with with well-known developers, bloggers, journalists, geeks.]

Please welcome Ben Brooks, author of The Brooks Review. Ben was one of the first people to accept my invitation for MacStories Interviews. You can follow him on Twitter as @benjaminbrooks. The interview was conducted from October 9th to November  3rd.

- Tell me a little about yourself: who are you, what do you do, etc…?

My name is Ben Brooks and I live in Seattle, WA with my beautiful wife. I run a commercial property management company in Lakewood, WA that I co-founded. During my free time I write over at The Brooks Review (brooksreview.net) talking mainly about technology.

When I am not glued in front of my computer I love to get out and hike, or shoot some pictures around town. My wife and I are also seriously addicted to chilling at home in front of our TV watching shows and movies, because the weather in Seattle can often demand that you stay in.

- What’s your current setup?

There are computers scattered throughout my house and office, but my main computer is a first generation unibody MacBook Pro (2.8ghz 6GB RAM 240GB SSD). I compliment that computer at work with a 24” LED Cinema Display. On the road I have a 16gb WiFi only iPad and a 32gb iPhone 4. I pack that all in either my Booq Taipan Shadow Messenger bag or my Booq Boa Push iPad bag - both of which I love.

At my office, other than the monitor, the only other thing that I attached is a Fujitsu Scansnap to stay paperless. I use a Bluetooth Apple Keyboard at both places and a Magic mouse at work.

At home I keep my MacBook Pro on a Rain Design mStand and have a Magic Trackpad paired up in addition to the keyboard. I also have 3+ terabytes of external hard drives for backups and media storage. I keep a well used Mac mini (original G4 1.42ghz model) hooked up to our TV in the living room for a media center.

Two things that come with me when I carry either the iPad or MacBook Pro are my Bose in-ear headphones and my Verizon MiFi for constant Internet access.

I used to be all about big crazy setups but over the past two years I have slimmed it down (still have way too much) to just what I need. I also try to keep the wires to a minimum because no matter what, wires tangle up on me. Read more